From: EPA AT datcon DOT co DOT uk (Edward Avis)
Subject: RE: B19; supporting a DOS-path such as C:\a\b\c;C:\d\e\f;D:\g\h
15 May 1998 10:45:26 -0700
Message-ID: <c=GB%a=TMAILUK%p=DCNET%l=EXCHANGE2-980514185430Z-9849.cygnus.gnu-win32@smtp.datcon.co.uk>
To: "'gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com'" <gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com>

>A question at hand is if the implementation of "open" and friends in
>cygwin32.dll understand DOS-style paths - but they might do that, so it
>should work.

This gives me an excuse to go on about DOS-style paths...

Personally, I think it would be a good idea if cygwin used the following
algorithm to deal with paths:

1. Change all \ to /.

2. Change all repeated slashes to single slashes, except for the first
character.  (ie ///a/b//c -> //a/b/c )

3. Change x:/, X:/, /x:/, /X:/, //x:/, //X:/, //x/, //X/ to <whatever x:
is>/

4. Change x:foo, X:foo, /x:foo, /X:foo, //x:foo, //X:foo, //x/foo,
//X/foo to <whatever x: is>/<Windows current directory on x:>/foo

5.Try to match case-sensitively.  If that fails, try to match
case-insensitively instead.  If that fails, try to match taking account
of Windows pecularities (for example "bar." and "bar...." are equivalent
to "bar").

This would provide maximum compatibility between Windows and Cygwin32
apps.  Of course "pwd" and so on would still show Unix style pathnames.

Hopefully the people who actually develop cygwin will point out flaws in
my suggestion.

--
Ed Avis <http://members.tripod.com/~mave>
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